L.A. Times Yanks Columnist's Blog

The editor's note said that Times policy, both in print and online, is for "editors and reporters to identify themselves when dealing with the public."

My knee-jerk reaction yesterday was to blame the networks for lavishing too much attention on a Chinese protester who disrupted the meeting between Hu Jintao and George W. Bush.

Why, after all, should one shouting woman be allowed to hijack the media spotlight at a get-together of two world leaders?

But that was before I learned that the White House had admitted the Falun Gong sympathizer, Wenyi Wang, as a member of the press (I sure wouldn't want to be the desk officer who okayed that one). And that this pseudo-journalist was therefore able to mar a meeting that had been carefully planned for a year. And that the Chinese considered this a major embarrassment, and that Chinese television went to black when she started shouting, and the Chinese newspapers wouldn't write about it.

That, my friends, is a story.

And by the way, why did it take the Secret Service nearly three agonizing minutes to arrest her?

New York's Daily News has a great headline: "Gong Show."

Epoch Times put out this statement about Wang: "Her actions this morning were her own. In protesting in this manner, she did not act on behalf of The Epoch Times. Moreover, she had not consulted any of her Epoch Times colleagues beforehand about her staging this protest. If The Epoch Times had known of her intention to use this event to protest, we would have seen that her press credentials were withdrawn. The Epoch Times apologizes to President Bush and the White House for Dr. Wang's actions."

I guess the Chinese also understand damage control.

"President Bush and President Hu Jintao of China, meeting for the first time at the White House today, pledged closer cooperation on fighting nuclear proliferation and addressing their massive trade imbalance," says the New York Times. "But they broke little new ground on a host of disputes that have strained the relationship between the countries in recent years."

Third graf: "A carefully choreographed welcome ceremony for Mr. Hu on the South Lawn was interrupted by an activist of the Falun Gong religious sect who managed to join the event as a reporter for the organization's United States-based newspaper, Epoch Times.

"The protester screamed about China's persecution of Falun Gong practitioners and partially drowned out Mr. Hu during his opening remarks before security officers managed to remove her from a press podium, leaving Mr. Bush, standing side-by-side with Mr. Hu, visibly angered."